Are There Ethical Issues with Making and Displaying Photos of Those About to Die?

[jtk]

<p>Ernest, I didn't notice that you'd used "ironic" quotation marks. I thought you used word reference quotation marks. :-)</p>

<p>I will point out that your insistance that YOU ("you") have the perfect and absolute understanding of the word "ethics" tells a common sort of story: You are so convinced that you have perfect and final understanding of the meaning of that word that you are uninterested in the questions and hypothetical (trial) answers posed by people who seem to be driven by curiosity.</p>

<p>"Curiosity" is an interesting attribute. I think of it as a virtue. </p>

<p>I don't know how my "quotation marks" appear on Ernest's monitor. Are they "ironic," do they simply point to words as words (eg the word "ironic") or are they misused (as is standard about half of the time) ?</p>

[ernest-b]

<p>Albert, that's very well stated indeed.</p>

<p>---------------------</p>

<p><em>John Kelly wrote: "I will point out that your insistance that YOU ("you") have the perfect and absolute understanding of the word "ethics"..."</em></p>

<p>Again, John: where?</p>

 

[Norma Desmond]

<p>Early in the thread, we were talking about photos of holocaust victims, so the Nazis have already been introduced. I hope that keeps me free of Godwin's law!</p>

<p>There were many Germans who thought they were doing the right thing by honoring and fighting for their country and by ridding the world of what they sincerely thought was a menace. Those Germans acted unethically, whether they knew it or not and despite their best intentions, intentions which to the millions of dead were worthless.</p>

<p>Ernest, I think you make a valid point, regarding some cases where intention (like pre-meditated murder) will make a difference in terms of ethical evaluations. And then there are other cases where the act and the result, not the intention, will determine the ethics.</p>

<p>________________________________________</p>

<p>Lannie, you haven't offered a point of view. Why not?</p>

[Landrum Kelly]

<blockquote>

<p>Those Germans acted unethically, whether they knew it or not and despite their best intentions, intentions which to the millions of dead were worthless.</p>

</blockquote>

<p>Fred, as I understand your position, "right" is not merely a matter of conviction or even intention. If it were, then Hitler was a most ethical person, a ludicrous conclusion. I think that we are certainly on the same page there. I do think that the intent that Ernest speaks of is a relevant consideration, however, and I am not at all sure that the typical modern teleologists (such as utilitarians) are correct that acts must be evaluated solely on the basis of their consequences. In the case of the comparison Ernest was speaking of, the intent of those shooting the pictures for the resistance made their acts ethical, even if the photos had never seen the light of day and thus never had any impact on actual consequences. That raises the question of "<em>intended </em>consequences" as a possible relevant criterion. I interpreted Ernest's use of "motives" as suggesting something like intended consequences, although the ambiguity in the word "motive" makes me a bit shy about expressing it quite that way myself--and Ernest can speak for himself as to whether he meant "intent" when he said "motive," as opposed to the feeling or emotion that drives one at the time one acts. We do, after all, tend to use words such as "motive" to mean more than one thing.<br /> <br /> I am not a Kantian, but I do think that the emphasis that Kant gives to universalizability is also laudable. In other words, in taking pictures as in so many other things, I think that we should indeed act by a rule, maxim, or principle that we would have all other persons act by--if not the Categorical Imperative verbatim (which I will not bother to restate here), at least something like it, such as the Golden Rule. (I do not think that Kant had any patent on universalizability.)</p>

<p>None of that is to say that an emphasis on consequences is entirely wide of the mark, anymore than is an emphasis on intent or motive. What I am suggesting is that the rightness of actions is perhaps a good bit more complicated than I once thought, and I think that I have defended all of the major schools of thought at one time or another--including Kant, the utilitarians, the emotivists, Hume (of the <em>Treatise</em>, at least), the Golden Rule, etc.</p>

<p>Perhaps the right act has to meet <em>all</em> of the criteria mentioned: motive, intention, consequences, universalizability, etc. Perhaps these criteria are individually all necessary but hardly sufficient by themselves alone. It is interesting that the act utilitarians and Kantians squared off as if one view must be true and the other false. I have to say, however, that I am not sure that the reconciliation between consequences and universalizability offered by rule utilitarianism quite carried or carries the weight that some have placed upon it--including Strawson and the early Rawls. It might yet be more nearly the "truth" than more doctrinaire Kantian or act utilitarian dogmas.</p>

<p>These are not issues that one dabbles in casually. I get passionate about ethical analysis, and I regret to say that, at the theoretical level, I am still a bit at sea after all these decades.</p>

<blockquote>

<p>Lannie, you haven't offered a point of view. Why not?</p>

</blockquote>

<p>Fred, since ethics is my favorite field in philosophy, I am very disappointed that I do not have time to get into the thick of this one right now. Our college is being visited by the regional accrediting team this week, and I am woefully behind on things that should have been completed much earlier.</p>

<p>But I just had to say a few words. I feel some sense of <em>moral obligation</em>. . . .</p>

<p>In any case, Fred, I see you as suggesting the possibility of some objective criterion or criteria of right. Perhaps I am mistaken, since I have not read the thread carefully. In any case, it might yet be tomorrow evening before I can get by here again. I will be interested in seeing where you and the others are by then.</p>

<p>--Lannie</p>

[Landrum Kelly]

<p>As for Godwin's law, Fred, well, we went to Hilter and the Holocaust straight out of the box.</p>

<p>At least no one has called anyone else a fascist in this discussion--yet.</p>

<p>--Lannie</p>

[Norma Desmond]

<p>Lannie, here's how I'd put it. "Right" is a moving/moveable objective target. Objective in that it's beyond me and not just about how I feel about something and moving in that it's not fixed and can often be relative to eras and cultures.</p>

[Landrum Kelly]

<p>The question for me, Fred, is whether there might be principles of right that are indeed universal, not relative to culture. The Golden Rule surely comes around in a lot of different cultures, although what it implies does seem to move around a good bit--some inferring the necessity of going to war in the name of the Golden Rule, others insisting that it implies that one must always use peaceful means (Gandhi, King, etc.).</p>

<p>May it suffice to say (for me right now, at least) that any principle that one might stand on (such as free speech, for example) might still have to be evaluated according to the Golden Rule before one insists upon applying it in a given case (<em>e.g., </em>speaking out in a given instance). This is not to deny that free speech is a universal right <em>in some sense.</em> It is to ask whether speaking out is <em>always</em> right. One can imagine a number of possible counter-examples where one has the option and the legal right of speaking out, but not necessarily the obligation--nor even the moral rights, notwithstanding the claim of legal right. In general, in fact, I would have to say that having the <em>legal</em> right to do something does not <em>ipso facto</em> imply either an <em>obligation</em> to do it or a <em>moral</em> right to do it. Indeed, one might be morally obligated in certain situations to forego the exercise of a right which few would dispute. (I am a near absolutist on First Amendment rights, for example, and I hope that no one would say that what I am saying suggests that I am backing off on free speech rights. That is not my point at all.)</p>

<p>All of this would take us pretty far afield, I suppose, but it or something like it does come around in photography: does the right (legal or otherwise) to take a picture mean that it is always morally right to take the picture that one has a legal right to take?</p>

<p>I rather doubt that!</p>

<p>I have to drop this for now, even though I have left myself open to any number of possible counter-arguments, given the incompleteness of my position as stated. I also realize that I seem to be convoluting some distinct issues. I see the problem but no simple way to avoid that right now.</p>

<p>Most troubling for me is the difference in language of "right " and "rights." The latter is usually a legal concept, and I have long held that law is reified morality. I am not sure of the logic of the transformation that takes place when one moves from "right" (as an adjective) to "rights" (a noun).</p>

<p>That is yet another issue, and such issues are legion in ethical theory. . . .</p>

<p>--Lannie</p>

[ernest-b]

<p>Lannie, thank you for commenting capably and accurately on my behalf.</p>

<p>I did indeed mean "conscious" motives when I used the word (= intent, intentions, intentionality).</p>

<p>Can the domain of "ethics" even apply to unconscious mental activities?</p>

<p>-----------------------------</p>

<p>Albert's post illuminates very well, I think, some of the factors that apply.</p>

<p>Without retracing the same ground, they are factors I was alluding to, when I offered the view in my initial post that the ethics of a given case <em>"would seem to depend almost entirely on the circumstances--most of all, on the photographer's role in the situation, the nature of his relation to the subject, and his intentions"</em>; and subsequently, that the ethical propriety would <em> </em>depend on <em>"(1) the photographer's understanding of the subject and the situation, and (2) the nature of his intentions."</em></p>

<p>-----------------------------</p>

<p>Fred, you wrote: <em> </em></p>

<p><em>"There were many Germans who thought they were doing the right thing by honoring and fighting for their country and by ridding the world of what they sincerely thought was a menace. Those Germans acted unethically, whether they knew it or not and despite their best intentions, intentions which to the millions of dead were worthless."</em></p>

<p>These two sentences contain broad generalizations that (in my opinion) cannot withstand scrutiny.</p>

<p>In a context of ethics, the actions of individuals are seldom black or white (or in Albert's words, "binary"). Many--if not most--actions fall into grey areas, whose relative light- or darkness is determined by the actor's knowledge and intent. If there exsts doubt about either the knowledge or the intent of the actor, then any meaningful judgment requires further examination.</p>

<p>Your first sentence lumps together all German soldiers who "thought they were doing the right thing"--i.e., those who fought under Rommel in the North African desert, who may never have harmed a civilian and had no other perspective on the war; and those on the eastern front, who formed firing squads to exterminate village after village of Jewish civilians in Poland, Ukraine and Russia. <em>All</em> German soldiers, everywhere, were fighting (per Hitler's domestic propaganda) to "rid the world of the menace" of Jewish-inspired capitalist and Jewish-inspired communist tyrannies, which had for too long blocked Germany's destiny and suppressed its possibilities. All German soldiers, according to your two sentences, acted unethically--just by being German soldiers.</p>

<p>Please consider again your second sentence in particular, and its implications:<em> </em></p>

<p><em>"Those Germans acted unethically, whether they knew it or not and despite their best intentions, intentions which to the millions of dead were worthless."</em></p>

<p>Does a soldier acting with the "best intentions" who, further, <em>has no knowledge</em> of the murderous actions carried out elsewhere by his nation's government and army, nonetheless "act unethically" just by obeying the laws of his country, by wearing the same uniform and fighting (as he believes) to support his nation's struggle against menacing foreign powers?</p>

<p>Who has perfect knowledge, Fred?</p>

<p>If one accepts the logic of your two cited sentences, then what have you to say about the men and women wearing U.S. uniforms today?</p>

<p>U.S. bombs and bullets have wrought some terrible things in very recent memory--just review the headlines. If intention and knowledge don't matter--as you've said--then they, and all of us who support them, are arguably as culpable as German privates who died in the sands of Libya in 1942.</p>

[Landrum Kelly]

<p>Well, since fascism has loomed rather large in this discussion, guys, I will include this link even though it is not about photography:</p>

<p>http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/14/us/14nazis.html?hp</p>

<p>I hope that Jeff and Mike will let it stand.</p>

<p>--Lannie</p>

[Norma Desmond]

<p>I think it's often a matter of the question and where the question gets us. Your original question here is so broad that it seems to beg to be answered (and was approached this way by many responders) with an "it depends . . ." sort of approach, lots of qualifications, lots of lack of clarity. </p>

<p>I wonder if a more specific question relating to a particular photograph might have gotten very different kinds of answers, more relating to our ethics and more relating to photography.</p>

[Norma Desmond]

<p>Ernest, the guys who killed Jews, gypsies, gay people, and others were unethical, even if they thought they were doing the right thing. I'm not concerned with soldiers who were on other fronts or not in combat. I wasn't talking about soldiers who weren't aware of the murderous actions of others. I was talking about the ones who did the murdering. I didn't think I needed to make that explicit. Now I have. The soldiers who murdered and aided in the murders and the murders themselves were unethical, regardless of the intentions of those carrying out or assisting in those murders.</p>

[Landrum Kelly]

<p>I'm sorry for stating the question in such a broad way, Fred. I was simply overcome by the picture that I saw when I checked out the original link:</p>

<p>http://chronicle.com/article/Dont-Look-Away/125241/?sid=at&utm_source=at&utm_medium=en</p>

<p>On a forum like this, however, I sometimes prefer the more open-ended questions in order to encourage participation.</p>

<p>The picture shown in the link could be a place to start all over, I suppose. How would you suggest rephrasing the question vis-a-vis that photo?</p>

<p>Apart from issues of the Holocaust or photography, I have to say that persons who fall back upon following orders in the military (or carrying out brutal orders in any office, for that matter) are among my least favorite people. They are <em>de facto</em> bullies, even when the evils they promote are relatively mild compared to what one sees in the photo--and surely <em>de facto</em> bullying is always evil in and of itself.</p>

<p>In any case, as much as the photo pains me, I am glad that someone got that picture, especially of the little boy standing apart and of his (apparent) mother turning around to look at him. One can only try to imagine what thoughts and feelings where going through their minds as they were marched off to virtually certain destruction.</p>

<p>It is hard to believe that people can be capable of doing that sort of thing, and yet many people are capable of it. I am still astonished at "man's inhumanity to man." Sorry for the sexist language, but the phrase has after all been around for quite awhile. . . .</p>

<p>--Lannie</p>

[Norma Desmond]

<p>Lannie, give me a minute. I'll see if something occurs to me. It will have to be better than discussing the ethics of Nazis killing Jews.</p>

[ernest-b]

<p><em>"Ernest, the guys who killed Jews, gypsies, gay people, and others were unethical, even if they thought they were doing the right thing. Whatever their intentions, I don't care. I'm not concerned with soldiers who were on other fronts or not in combat. Did I really need to state that?"</em></p>

<p>Jeez Louise, Fred.</p>

<p>When I wrote earlier that the "ethics" of a person's actions depends in large part on his intentions, did I <em>really need to state</em> that I would not include "commiting mass murder" within the subset of "good intentions"?</p>

<p>If not, what was the point of your statements, which I cited?</p>

<p>Why don't we just read each other's minds?</p>

<p> </p>

[Landrum Kelly]

<blockquote>

<p>It will have to be better than discussing the ethics of Nazis killing Jews.</p>

</blockquote>

<p>I'm sorry, Fred. I can only try to imagine the effect on you, given the power of such photographs over me. On another level, I am still shaking my head that men in uniform (including the corporate uniform of business suits--the presidency, etc.) are capable of being a party to such horrors, or that of Hiroshima, for that matter--and sometimes even routine, day-to-day corporate firings of the elderly, or anyone else for no defensible reason (not to equate the various types of horror)..</p>

<p>As for a more problematic photo, there was one in the <em>New York Times</em> in the early to mid-nineties. At that time I was at Georgia Southern University, and the only way that we could get the <em>Times</em> during the week was via truck all the way down from Atlanta. A guy named Bob Dick from New York was sharing my office at the time. He was retired, but he didn't quite want to leave, and so we scrounged up another desk for him. Anyway, when he saw the picture in question of two women with eyes as big as silver dollars being herded off by a Nazi rifleman, the effect on him was absolutely devastating. It was as graphic a picture as I have ever seen in a major newspaper, showing full frontal nudity and therefore provoking a strong reaction from the Hasidim--but what "bit" in that picture were those terrified eyes.</p>

<p>In any case, the <em>Times</em> defended its publication of the picture, and Bob said, "Surely this is at least a response to those who say that the Holocaust never happened." He was not capable of saying much more at that moment. Nor was I.</p>

<p>I am glad that the picture was made and published, although I have never seen it since--and it was as powerful a picture as I think that I have ever seen in its capture of a moment of sheer horror.</p>

<p>I think that the photographer and the <em>Times</em> did the right thing, in any case.</p>

<p>--Lannie</p>

[Norma Desmond]

<p>The picture that started this thread is, for me, an ethically easy one (though a difficult photo to look at). It's pretty simple, and most seem to agree, that the personal and historical importance of knowing and seeing the horror makes the taking and showing of this photo not only ethical, but perhaps leaning toward obligatory.</p>

<p><a href="http://www.nytimes.com/slideshow/2006/10/05/arts/20061006_LEIBOVITZ_SLIDESHOW_11.html">THIS PHOTO</a> and others like it that are in Leibovitz's <em>A Photographer's Life</em>, I think, would generate more controversy and therefore more critical thinking and substantiation of one's approach to right and wrong when it comes to a photograph. There is a lot written about these photos on line and elsewhere. Sontag, pictured, just before her death, had given Annie permission to take the photos. Sontag's son was horrified by its publication. There are more graphic ones, at the funeral home, which I can't find on line, which says a lot about how the powers that be may feel about it.</p>

<p>What are the ethical and photographic tensions, if any, here? Do you consider them good photos? There are also photos of her dying and dead parents which, I think, are among her best. I think she just took them and I think they are genuine. Others think they're stunt-like. From several of the accounts I've read, I'm not that sympathetic with Sontag's son because he seemed to have other fish to fry about the relationship of Leibovitz and Sontag to begin with.</p>

[peter_kervarec]

<p>This is an interesting topic but I thinh that death and dying is part of the fabric of life. In Australia it is unethical to show the faces of dead Aboriginal people without a public warning. This warning precedes all documentaries and photography of Aboriginal people as these people find it offensive to see one of their own who has since passed on. That is their culture and I respect that.<br>

I have a picture that I took of a dead bird that I found by the roadside and wanted to give it a dignified burial. I find that as I get older, death becomes much more acceptable to me.</p><div></div>

[peter_kervarec]

<p>I should have said that photographs of death and dying have also become much more acceptable to me.</p>

[ernest-b]

<p>Peter, that's an interesting photograph and a beautiful bird--it looks almost like a butterfly.</p>

<p>How did you make it? It appears that the heel of your palm and your fingertips are pressing against a sheet of glass.</p>

[aplumpton]

<p>The photograph at the beginning of the OT was almost certainly made by a Nazi or a German journalist. The photographer likely had no moral qualms about that, as he had been brain washed by the Nazi propaganda into considering the victims as menaces and of no greater respect than that of a cow going to slaughter. Unethical from his point (unless he was naively innocent about the outcome), yes. If it had been made by a morally responsable individual that would be another thing. Given history there is in my mind no unethical question in displaying the photo by non-Nazi sympathisers. On the contrary.</p>

<p>The photographer who made thousands of pictures of the about to die in the killing fields of Cambodia, including relatives, acted unethically. However, he did not have the same luxury of choice as we would have, sitting in our living rooms. Had he not made the images, he would have been immediately slaughtered and someone else would have done the evil job.</p>

<p>In less extreme cases, the documenting of someone's demise and even its difusion afterwards is in my mind perfectly ethical, provided that agreement has been obtained from the dying (as I presume happened with Avedon's father, Sontag).</p>

<p>I spent some time helping my father when he was dying, as did my brother in regard to my mother some time later in a distant place, but neither of us thought to ask if photography would be acceptable to the dying and didn't attempt to record their last days. I am sure, though, that by discussing sensitively the desire of the family to document their last days, not sensationally but compassionately, they would have considered that action by photography as both ethical and caring.</p>

[albert_richardson1]

<p>There are other ways of crystallizing the issue if the OP had that intention. An example would be, "Ought a photographer take pictures of dead and dying people being put into mass graves?" I don't know if anyone would write about ethics, per se, but words like 'right' and 'wrong' would be used a lot. Perhaps the same thing. How did 'conscience' escape mention?</p>

<p>The OP also asked for opinions about other subjects that might fall into the same camp as dead and dying people. Lying politicians and deceptive advertising, perhaps?</p>

[jtk]

<p>When ideas are contorted into sentences that rely on badly used words, they self-destruct. </p>

<p>In this case the mis-application of "ethics" to an easily apprehended legal situation (soldiers, even Hitler's, were ruled by law) has diverted the discussion away from utilitarian understanding of ethics by applying the word wrongly. There is no such thing, save as a graphic (eg typesetting exercise) as a non-utilitarian understanding of a word. A word is a tool. </p>

<p>Hitler's soldiers were often tried and convicted in courts of law...both Hitler's military courts during the Third Reich and the courts of the victorious allies. These were not ethical exercises, they were legal exercises. People were hung, and that had entirely to do with law, nothing to do with ethics. One set of laws hung Nazis, another set of laws was vanquished.</p>

 

[peter_kervarec]

<p>I would really like to add to this mix because this is interesting. Death and dying evokes an emotion within me, especially when I see a photograph portraying this. However what evokes a different and way more powerful emotion in me is impending death especially death inflicted upon human beings by other human beings.<br /> The most powerful image I have ever seen is this image of an execution during the Vietnam War from Time Life. The shooter is a South Vietnamese officer and the arbitrary execution is of an alleged Viet Cong sympathiser. This visual resides in my brain like no other image that I have seen ( other than a few of my own ). It actually physically "touches" something in my stomach when i look at it.</p>

[peter_kervarec]

<p>This is the photo I spoke of.</p><div></div>

[ernest-b]

<p>Peter, you're probably aware already of the further background of that photo, and the photographer's own reservations about it. For anyone who is not, they are worth considering in the context of this thread. (The photo is included in the Wikipedia links below, in case it gets deleted by the moderators):</p>

<p>-----------------------------------------</p>

<p><em>Nguyễn Văn Lém (referred to as Captain Bảy Lốp) (died 1 February 1968 in Saigon) was a member of the Viet Cong who was summarily executed in Saigon during the Tet Offensive. The execution was captured on film by photojournalist Eddie Adams, and the momentous image became a symbol of the inhumanity of war. The execution was explained at the time as being the consequence of Lém's suspected guerilla activity and war crimes, and otherwise due to a general "wartime mentality."</em></p>

<p><em>On the second day of Tet, amid fierce street fighting, Lém was captured and brought to Brigadier General Nguyễn Ngọc Loan, then Chief of the Republic of Vietnam National Police. Using his personal sidearm, General Loan summarily executed Lém in front of AP photographer Eddie Adams and NBC television cameraman Vo Suu.<sup id="cite_ref-0"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nguy%E1%BB%85n_V%C4%83n_L%C3%A9m#cite_note-0"> </a></sup> The photograph and footage were broadcast worldwide, galvanizing the anti-war movement; Adams won a 1969 Pulitzer Prize for his photograph.</em></p>

<p><em>South Vietnamese sources said that Lém commanded a Viet Cong death squad, which on that day had targeted South Vietnamese National Police officers, or in their stead, the police officers' families. Corroborating with this, Lém was captured at the site of a mass grave that included the bodies of at least seven police family members. Photographer Adams confirmed the South Vietnamese account, although he was only present for the execution. Lém's widow confirmed that her husband was a member of the Viet Cong and she did not see him after the Tet Offensive began. Shortly after the execution, a South Vietnamese official who had not been present said that Lém was only a political operative.</em></p>

<p><em>Though military lawyers have yet to definitively decide whether Loan's action violated the Geneva Conventions for treatment of prisoners of war (Lém had not been wearing a uniform; nor was he, it is alleged, fighting enemy soldiers at the time), where POW status was granted independently of the laws of war; it was limited to Viet Cong seized during military operations<sup id="cite_ref-1"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nguy%E1%BB%85n_V%C4%83n_L%C3%A9m#cite_note-1"> </a></sup>.</em></p>

<p>> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nguy%E1%BB%85n_V%C4%83n_L%C3%A9m</p>

<p>-----------------------------------------</p>

<p>General Nguyen Ngoc Loan Executing a Viet Cong Prisoner in Saigon <em>is a photograph taken by Eddie Adams on February 1, 1968. It shows South Vietnamese National Police Chief Nguyễn Ngọc Loan executing a Viet Cong officer in Saigon during the Tet Offensive. The event was also captured by NBC News film cameras, but Adams' photograph remains the defining image.</em></p>

<p><em>There is also some dispute as to the identity of the man who is being executed in the photograph. It has been claimed that he was either Nguyễn Văn Lém or Le Cong Na, a similar looking man who was also a member of the Viet Cong and died during the Tet Offensive. The families of both men claimed that the Viet Cong officer in the photo looks very similar to their relative. Neither family could say for sure.</em></p>

<p><em>Lém was captured and brought to Brigadier General Nguyễn Ngọc Loan, then Chief of the Republic of Viet Nam National Police. Using his personal sidearm, General Loan summarily executed Lém...</em></p>

<p><em>South Vietnamese sources state that Lém commanded a Viet Cong death squad, which on that day had murdered South Vietnamese National Police officers, or in their stead, the police officers' families; these sources said that Lém was captured near the site of a ditch holding as many as thirty-four bound and shot bodies of police and their relatives, some of whom were the families of General Loan's deputy and close friend, and six of whom were Loan's godchildren. Photographer Adams confirmed the South Vietnamese account, although he was only present for the execution. Lém's widow confirmed that her husband was a member of the Viet Cong and she did not see him after the Tet Offensive began. Shortly after the execution, a South Vietnamese official who had not been present said that Lém was only a political operative.<sup id="cite_ref-4"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nguy%E1%BB%85n_Ng%E1%BB%8Dc_Loan#cite_note-4"> </a></sup></em></p>

<p><em>The photo won Adams the 1969 Pulitzer Prize for Spot News Photography, though he was later said to have regretted the impact it had. The image became an anti-war icon. Concerning General Nguyễn and his famous photograph, Eddie Adams later wrote in Time:</em></p>

<p><em>"The general killed the Viet Cong; I killed the general with my camera. Still photographs are the most powerful weapon in the world. People believe them, but photographs do lie, even without manipulation. They are only half-truths ... What the photograph didn't say was, 'What would you do if you were the general at that time and place on that hot day, and you caught the so-called bad guy after he blew away one, two or three American soldiers?"</em></p>

<p><em>Adams later apologized in person to General Loan and his family for the damage it did to his reputation. When General Loan died of cancer in his new home of Virginia, Adams praised him: "The guy was a hero. America should be crying. I just hate to see him go this way, without people knowing anything about him."</em><sup id="cite_ref-6"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nguy%E1%BB%85n_Ng%E1%BB%8Dc_Loan#cite_note-6"> </a></sup><sup id="cite_ref-7"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nguy%E1%BB%85n_Ng%E1%BB%8Dc_Loan#cite_note-7"> </a></sup></p>

<p>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nguy%E1%BB%85n_Ng%E1%BB%8Dc_Loan</p>

<p>--------------------------------------------</p>

<p>The full text of Adams' 1998 <em>Time</em> comments<em> </em>is here:</p>

<p>> http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,988783,00.html<br /> <a href="http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,988783,00.html#ixzz15KFby4PZ"><br /></a></p>